Golden Lies (16 page)

Jasmine wrung her hands. "I didn't want to tell you. I still don't. But I am afraid they will."

"Who? Who will tell me?"

"Paige."

The name didn't ring a bell.

"She is his daughter, too," Jasmine added, drawing in a breath. "Paige Hathaway."

"Hathaway? As in the Hathaways? My father is a Hathaway?" Alyssa asked in shock.

"David Hathaway. He was attacked in Salmon Alley two days ago."

"That's only two blocks away."

"He came to see me."

"He came to see you after all these years?" Alyssa's mind was spinning. "Why? Why now?"

"He has come before. I am sorry, Alyssa. I only wanted to protect you. But his family knows of your existence now, and they may want to talk to you."

Alyssa couldn't believe what she was hearing. "They want to talk to me? Why?"

"Because it's possible that your father may not survive."

She didn't know how she was supposed to take that information. Was she supposed to feel sad about a man she didn't know? Angry—because now it might be too late to know him? But why would she want to know him? Had he known about her? Had he ignored her all these years? She took a breath. "You said be came to see you. Why?"

"That's not important."

"Of course it's important. Does he know about me? Does he know I'm his daughter?"

"Yes," Jasmine said quietly, painfully. "He knows."

"For how long?" Her mother's dark eyes pleaded with her for understanding, but Alyssa wasn't sure she could give it. "How long?"

"Since you were born."

Her mother's words were shocking. "How can that be? How can he have known and not come to see me? He doesn't live that far away. My God! David Hathaway is an incredibly rich man. He lives in a mansion in Pacific Heights. I know, because there's a picture of the house on the wall of the bank I work in." Her anger grew with each word, each new realization. "And he let us live here, in this small apartment? You had to work two jobs when I was small. We barely had enough to eat."

"I wouldn't take his money in the beginning. But when you got older, when you needed things, I asked him to help. He paid for your college. He bought my paintings to help us out."

"To ease his guilt, you mean. He should have supported us, or at least me. I don't care what you told him."

"He did give me some money. That's the only way I could afford for us to live here alone. But I hated every penny that I took from him. If I couldn't have him, I didn't want his money, but pride wouldn't pay the rent, so I took a little when I had to."

Alyssa sat down on the couch, not sure she would have the energy to get back up again. She'd never felt so overwhelmed in her life. She had hated not knowing who her father was, but now that she did, she almost wished for that innocence again. It was bad enough to know that her father hadn't loved them enough to stay—but even worse to know he was a rich, powerful man who lived only a few miles away but had never wanted to see her.

Jasmine sat down in the chair across from her. She tapped the teapot on the table with her finger. "Would you like some tea?"

Alyssa shook her head. How could they have tea? How could they pretend that nothing had changed between them?

For long minutes there was nothing but silence in the room. It wasn't unusual that they were quiet. Her mother had never been a talker, but now the air was filled with tension and distrust. Alyssa couldn't help it. She loved her mother, but she couldn't understand how she had kept such a secret all these years.

"You don't have to see him," Jasmine said haltingly.

"Of course I don't have to see him. I don't want to see him. He didn't care enough to see me." Alyssa paused, her mind catching up with everything that had been said. "You said he was attacked in the alley?"

"Yes. He was struck in the head. He has been unconscious since then." Jasmine's voice caught, and she lowered her gaze to the floor.

Alyssa felt as if she were seeing her mother for the first time. She had known that her mother had loved a man, and obviously slept with him since she'd been born as a result, but Jasmine hadn't dated anyone since then. She'd always been alone, content she said with her daughter and her painting. Now Alyssa couldn't help wondering what her mother felt for David Hathaway. Was it possible she still cared about him? It seemed unthinkable. He had left her to fend for herself alone, with a child. But Jasmine had never said one angry word against him. She'd never complained about her life, just accepted her fate.

It wasn't fair. David Hathaway had so much, and they had so little.

"You must not blame him," Jasmine said, breaking the silence.

She met her mother's gaze. "How can I not?"

"There are things you don't understand. I feel responsible for what happened to him."

"Why would you be responsible?"

"He came to show me something. If he hadn't come, he wouldn't be hurt."

"What did he show you?"

Jasmine hesitated. "The dragon, Alyssa. He found the dragon."

Alyssa's gaze flew to the wall, to the serpent-like creature her mother had painted so many times Alyssa could have drawn it herself simply from memory. "You said it didn't exist."

"I know now that it does. I held it in my hands."

Alyssa's body tightened. That dragon had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. On many nights her mother had awakened from sweat-drenched nightmares, mumbling about the dragon. Sometimes it saved her. Sometimes it threatened her. Sometimes she couldn't find it.

"So he..." She couldn't bring herself to call him her father yet. "He has the dragon?"

"I think it was stolen from him in the alley."

"Why? Who would steal it? Is it valuable?"

"It must be."

Before Alyssa could ask her to elaborate, a knock came at the door, surprising them both. "I'll get it," she said, rising to her feet. She didn't know whom she was expecting when she threw open the door, but it certainly wasn't two uniformed police officers.

"Jasmine Chen?" one of the officers asked.

"I am Jasmine Chen," her mother said from behind her.

"We'd like to talk to you about a robbery that occurred down the street and a man you may know -- David Hathaway."

* * *

Paige walked into her apartment and shut the door with a weary sigh. She'd spent the night at the hospital, catching a few hours sleep on a couch in the waiting room. She could have gone home. Her grandfather had hired private nurses to stay with her father twenty-four hours a day, but after Jasmine's surprise appearance in her father's room, Paige had felt compelled to remain close by. Even though neither Jasmine nor her mother had answered the question about Alyssa's parentage, Paige knew the answer. She'd seen it in Jasmine's eyes. And she'd seen it in her mother's eyes before they'd both left the room, leaving Paige alone with her father. She'd stared down at him for a long time, wishing he would wake up so she could ask him the questions burning her tongue, but he had slept, and he was still sleeping now. At least, that's what she liked to call it. Sleeping sounded so much better than coma.

Setting her purse on the table, she considered her options. She could nap, go to work, take a shower ... she usually had a dozen things on her to-do list and today shouldn't have been any different, but it was. Since her father's attack, her priorities had shifted. She picked up her favorite family photograph from the table. Her father looked so young, vibrant and healthy. How she wished she could have that man back. Her mother looked good, too, happy as they posed in the front yard on the occasion of her grandfather's birthday. Her grandfather stood in the back, his tall, sturdy body like a solid tree, his arms around his son on one side and his daughter-in-law on the other. Paige and her sister, Elizabeth, sat on a bench in front of them, dressed in beautiful, fluffy white dresses.

Looking at her sister's sweet face, a face that had never grown old, never worn makeup, never kissed a boy, made her incredibly sad. Maybe it was the reminder that it was almost Elizabeth's birthday that brought tears to her eyes. Her father had to wake up soon. He hadn't ever missed Elizabeth's birthday. He had a present for her, a present only he could give.

Maybe it was a sick tradition, as her mother thought. But at the moment Paige clung to it, because continuing the ritual meant everything was going on the way it was supposed to go on. Paige set the photo down. The happy family portrait was really nothing more than an illusion. Her father had had an affair. He'd slept with another woman. Jasmine Chen was hardly the prettiest, sexiest woman Paige had seen. Maybe she had been in her day. Obviously their affair went back twenty-something years.

Alyssa was twenty-two years old, and Elizabeth had been dead almost twenty-three years. That meant that her father had had this affair almost immediately after Elizabeth's death. Paige's pulse quickened as she calculated the possibilities. Was that why it had happened? Had her father been so lost in grief, despair, and unhappiness that he'd reached out to another woman?

Or was she just trying to excuse his behavior the way she always did?

The doorbell rang, and she started, glancing down at her watch. It was ten o'clock in the morning. Who would be calling on her now? She went to the intercom and said, "Hello?"

"It's Riley. Can I come up?"

Riley? Her heart skipped a beat. Did she want him to come up? It seemed as if they were living in each other's pocket these days. And yet, at the same time, it felt as if it had been too long since she'd last seen him. The bell rang again, more insistently. Patience was not his strong suit. She buzzed him in.

She made a quick dash to the mirror. Her hair was falling out of its ponytail. There was not a speck of makeup left on her face, nothing to hide the shadows under her eyes. And her clothes were wrinkled. She was basically a mess, and she hated to face Riley looking like this. But he was already knocking at the door; she had no choice but to open it.

She wished she could say he looked as bad as she did, but it was just the opposite. His hair was damp from a recent shower, his skin scrubbed and glowing. He smelled good. He looked even better in a pair of black trousers and a long-sleeve, gray knit shirt.

"You look awful," he said. "Did you sleep in those clothes?"

"As a matter of fact, I did."

"Any change in your father's condition?"

"None. I don't know why it's taking so long for him to wake up. But he will wake up. I just have to be patient."

Riley walked into her apartment. "This is nice."

The apartment wasn't really her. While she'd expressed her independence by getting her own place, she'd followed true Hathaway form by allowing her mother to decorate it with antiques, paintings, and expensive furniture. A cleaning lady came once a week to keep everything sparkling clean, and since Paige never made a mess, the apartment was always spotless, but not particularly warm and inviting.

"I feel like I just stepped into the page of a magazine," Riley continued. "Where's the clutter? The shoes you kicked off when you got home, the newspaper you just read, the keys you tossed on the table when you came in?"

"My shoes are still on my feet. The newspaper is in the recycle bin, and the keys are in my purse where they belong."

He raised an eyebrow. "Obsessive-compulsive?"

"Just neat. Do you have a reason for being here?"

"I have some information for you. I called Raymond Li at home. His daughter told me he's on vacation, and she doesn't know when he'll be back." He paused. "Raymond Li wasn't scheduled for a vacation, was he?"

"I don't know. I don't keep track of the vacation time of every employee."

"She said it was a sudden trip, destination unknown."

"You make it sound mysterious."

"As far as we know, Mr. Li is the only other person at Hathaway's who had a chance to examine the dragon. He might also be the only other person who knows why your father went to Chinatown. I'd say that makes him a key player. The fact that he's now nowhere to be found is too big of a coincidence for me."

"Do you think that Raymond Li had something to do with the assault on my father? I can't believe that. He's worked at the store for twenty years. He's had plenty of opportunities to steal, if that's what you're implying."

"I'm not implying anything. Just saying his sudden vacation is suspicious. Let's say that he knew your father took the dragon out of the store. He might have even known where David was going. Or he could have followed him. I don't think someone just happened by that alley, found your father, and took advantage of his presence by robbing him. Someone followed him to Chinatown or knew where he was going and set the whole thing up. We know your father saw Jasmine a little before five o'clock and that the police found your father around nine o'clock. It certainly didn't take him four hours to walk those short blocks from Jasmine's apartment. And it doesn't appear that he was lying there for four hours, either. I'm figuring he went somewhere else and was coming back, maybe to tell Jasmine what he learned. Or else he had business in that area and was leaving that location."